Apr 08, 2025 06:20 AM IST
Connaught Place in Delhi options 4 circles, every providing distinctive experiences, from serene Central Park to the colourful Inside Circle, wealthy in historical past.
In Dantei’s Inferno, Hell has 9 concentric circles, every representing a distinct stage of sin and punishment. In Delhi’s Connaught Place (CP), the buying haven has 4 concentric circles, every representing a distinct stage of expertise.
This tree-lined path makes for a leisurely stroll. (HT Photograph)
Begin with the innermost circle. It occurs to be the tiled observe that runs alongside the border of what’s CP’s heart-core: the Central Park.
This tree-lined path makes for a leisurely stroll. Plus, if you happen to abruptly really feel drained, then… fret not! The way in which ahead is interspersed with benches (see photograph). The seating areas face the traffic-heavy highway that separates the round pathway from CP’s Inside Circle colonnade… the colonnade! Speckled with showrooms and eating places, the colonnade is a reservoir of CP reminiscences that generations of Delhi wallas have collected out of vaguely remembered strolls with family members from occasions previous and current.
This afternoon, the leaf-strewn observe is generally abandoned. Which makes it doubly surreal to grasp that proper beneath our strolling toes is the underground Rajiv Chowk metro terminus, teeming with waves of commuters dashing about in cloudy swarms of flying bees. Throughout the pre-metro period, the adjoining Central Park had a profoundly completely different persona. Put up sunset, it will refill with lone males and transgender residents. Then, early this century, the park was taken over by the Delhi Metro Rail Company (to assemble the underground station). It reopened years later in a gentrified avatar. The previous regulars—society misfits—by no means returned.
Because the spherical path runs alongside the park’s complete fence, the walker’s gaze simply takes within the folks presently lounging inside. Many are romantic {couples}, others are in teams of households and mates. Just one loner is sighted—he’s beneath a tree, studying a e-book.
A extra fascinating sight exhibits up on shifting the gaze to the opposite facet, throughout the highway, in the direction of the crowded Inside Circle colonnade. The surroundings is stamped with CP’s uniform white double-storey blocks. That is the unique holograph of Connaught Place, constructed by the British in what was a jungle of keekar timber. The round path on which the stroller is strolling actually makes for the perfect vantage website to view (and examine) CP’s signature structure. Proper now, the impolite summertime sunshine is hitting exhausting on the CP white, the robust reflection is hurting one’s eyes as nicely. Persevering with to stroll, the stroller reaches a spot that overlooks a spot between the 2 white blocks. The distant horizon is marked by one thing very non-CP. It’s the stone dome of Outdated Delhi’s Jama Masjid.
